Tuesday, March 29, 2016

I decided to stick with my pSorscha list for a while. I was however struck by a random desire to take the MOW Kovnik out for a spin; I really want that guy to work, and I figured a POW 14 gun should be useful when everything's frozen. So I traded Aiyana, Holt, and Rein-Holt for the Kovnik and Maddie (to help him move his fat behind).Sorscha I-Decimator-Spriggan-SylyssNyss HuntersCroe's Cutthroats-ValachevAlexia & the RisenMOW KovnikMaddieKoldun Lord

Pre-Game:
I won the roll and chose to go second (for practice), picking the side with the wall. I chose the Fuel objective, Beanpole picked Arcane Wonder.

Deployment:
Beanpole deployed his Nihilators and Reavers on my left, with the Immortals on my right.

I put Sorscha in the middle with a jack on each side and the Nyss set to flow around them. Alexia went on the left with Maddie, while the Kovnik went on the right where his high-power gun and axe might be more useful against the tougher Immortals. Thus meaning he was too far to benefit from Maddie's Intrigue move. Sigh. The Cutthroats went on the left; I figured they would be better off against the living models than the dead ones, and Stealth would protect them from the Reavers.

Round 1:
Beanpole advanced and spread out. Last Stand went on the Nihilators and Defender's Ward on the Immortals.

I advanced but tried not to overextend myself; I didn't feel that I was under any scenario pressure yet so I played very cagey. The jacks charged with Boundless Charge for the extra inch. The Cutthroats relied on the forest for protection. I ran a Thrall forwards just to make sure Beanpole would have to work for the few Cutthroats potentially in his range.

Round 2:
Beanpole dropped Last Stand, and actually used the Thrall to extend his range by giving the Nihilators pathfinder and charging one at the Thrall; after killing the Thrall he was able to Berserk onto a Cutthroat that he wouldn't otherwise have been able to charge because of the forest blocking line of sight. Other than that he just ran forwards and engaged a few models.

Sorscha moved forwards and feat, catching a few Immortals and most of the Nihilators including the unit leader. She then cast Freezing Grip at a frozen Immortal to shut down that unit, shot a Nihilator, then Wind-Rushed backwards.

The Spriggan walked forwards and took down a Nihilator, who toughed. Which I was hoping he would, as it would make him an easy Freezing Grip target next turn. The Nyss Hunters charged and killed four or five Immortals with nice damage rolls. The Decimator took a point of focus from the Koldun Lord and killed two more with the Dozer. The Kovnik walked up and shot one with his POW 14 axe, but didn't break armour. Sigh.

The Cutthroats shot down a few Nihilators and Reavers, but didn't advance past the forest. Alexia created another Thrall to charge Hakaar, but I had stupidly placed the Risen in the pond and forgot that it was rough terrain until after declaring my charge target, leaving my Thrall standing around like an idiot.

Round 3:
Beanpole did the maths and figured that, on average, Hakaar with Last Stand, three souls, and Zaal's feat would do 30 damage to the Spriggan assuming he didn't take out the shield. So he sent him in. He did 12 damage, only knocking out the cortex. Hakaar then died thanks to Last Stand, leaving behind a Kovaas.

The Krea , Ancestral Guardian, and maybe something else killed about four Nyss Hunters. The Reavers attacked the Cutthroats but couldn't do much with Stealth and the forest protecting them.

The Nihilators had only lost a few members while the Immortals had been thinned considerably, so I decided the Nihilators were the bigger threat. I was not happy about that Kovaas standing there though, and needed to do something about it. So I decided that Sylyss would give Sorscha the Arcane Secrets boost, which she would use on a Razor Wind into the Kovaas before using Freezing Grip on the knocked-down Nihilator.

Which I immediately forgot, activating Sorscha before Sylyss. Sigh. She froze the Nihilators then used the last of her focus to cast Razor Wind, which fortunately killed the Kovaas with a couple of great rolls. That was quite a stroke of luck.

The Decimator took a point of focus from the Koldun Lord and charged the Krea, doing a fair bit of damage. This cleared the path for the MOW Kovnik to launch a glorious P+S 15 Weaponmaster charge at the Ancestral Guardian... he took 2 damage from the defensive strike then left the Guardian on 2 boxes. Sigh.

The Spriggan killed the nearby Nihilator. One Nyss Hunter killed an Immortal in melee, while the other four failed to break a second's armour with a CRA. The Cutthroats killed some more Nihilators and a Reaver. Alexia sent another Thrall into a Reptile Hound, leaving it on a few boxes.

Round 4:
Beanpole sent the three hounds into the Spriggan; the first one didn't get the Flank bonus, the second got Last Stand and did a lot of damage before dying, but the third was a few millimeters out and couldn't attack. At this point the Spriggan had lost all his systems except movement. Last Stand was then swapped over to the Krea, who took a couple of columns off the Decimator before dying. Zaal gave the Ancestral Guardian some souls, which he used to kill the Kovnik. Sigh. The Immortals attacked the Nyss Hunters but only managed to connect with one.

Well, I was doing quite well on attrition, but attrition doesn't win games, you still have to actually achieve a win condition. So I decided it was time to try to start scoring. I had a plan: the Decimator would kill the Ancestral Guardian, giving Sorscha a clear path to the flag. Sylyss would give her Arcane Secrets so she could freeze the Immortals on her way. Maddie would give her the Intrigue move to make sure she had distance.

Naturally the first thing I did was activate Sorscha, ruining the whole plan. Sigh. Without Arcane Secrets I figured I had better boost to hit the Immortals, so I didn't get to use Wind Rush. The Decimator took a point of focus and killed the Ancestral Guardian, leaving a Kovaas in it's place. Hmm, forgot about that. He then missed an attack against a Beast Handler.

The Spriggan and Nyss Hunters killed the remaining Immortals, and one moved between Sorscha and the Kovaas, for what good that would do. Sylyss moved up to try to block landing zones. Risen and a Thrall brought one hound down to a single box. Cutthroats killed a few models.

Round 5:
The hounds finished off the Spriggan. Nihilators killed some Risen. Zaal cast Last Stand on the Kovaas, which moved up and Threshered, killing the Koldun Lord and Sylyss and putting a heap of damage on Sorscha. He then used a soul to buy another attack, finishing her off.

Postmortem:
Hmm, did not see that Kovaas thing coming. I really should have; I'd seen the Kovaas already that game, and I'd seen how much damage Last Stand could do. I didn't know he had Thresher (or Reach for that matter, it's not obvious since he doesn't exactly have a weapon after all), for what that's worth. If I had appreciated his threat better I might have tried to better protect Sorscha by running more Nyss Hunters around her, but I guess he would have just used their souls to buy more attacks; I don't think there was really anything I could have done to save her at the end. Of course if I hadn't screwed up my plans at the end I might have seen the Kovass before activating her and managed to keep her safe. Maybe.

Well, at least I didn't go for assassination this time. The game went pretty well for me, thanks mainly to Sorscha's freezing powers and some good dice. I was far too cagey however; the Cutthroats did very little work because I had put them behind the forest where not many of them could get good shots. If I'd been more aggressive with them, I would have killed the Nihilators off and maybe kept my Spriggan alive. I also kept Alexia all the way at the back the whole game, and as a result neither her unit nor her Thralls actually killed anything all game; seeing as Maddie mainly just stood back to extend her threat range, that was pretty much 7 points that weren't doing anything. Well, the Risen did eat some attacks that might have gone into the Cutthroats I suppose. I never used any of Sylyss' abilities either (due entirely to my own stupidity). The Spriggan didn't do much but he kept my opponent busy. The Decimator did some work, even with what little focus he was given.

Actually, seeing as Sorscha never handed out any focus, and I had two jack marshals on the table, I might have been better off marshaling one of the jacks. Well, against this list anyway; if he'd had some heavies then it would have been another story.

I didn't do much to shield my jacks this game, but then I wasn't able to appreciate the armour cracking potential of some of his models under Last Stand and figured they were pretty safe. They didn't have the volume of attacks to do much work anyway, so in this game they were probably more disposable than my infantry. They lasted longer than they should have anyway; Beanpole's damage dice were sub-par, at least against the jacks.

The Kovnik let me down this game. He couldn't kill anything; not a frozen Immortal nor the solo THAT HE GOT THE CHARGE ON! I mean, seriously, my 3-point medium-based melee beatstick solo got the charge on his medium-based 3-point (I think) melee beatstick solo, and lost (despite having a vastly superior melee weapon?). What a disappointment. I'm starting to run out of room in my miniatures case, maybe I should just leave him at home from now on. Which would leave me with a heavy heart, but what can you do if the model just won't perform?

Hmm, does Alexia's Dominate Undead work on a Kovaas? I actually still haven't used that ability, I'll have to try to remember it next time.

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

When I'm painting I rarely mix up the "right" amount of paint; it's typically either too much or too little, in which case I mix up some more and it becomes too much. In other words, after I'm done painting with one colour I often have some left. While painting Old Rowdy, I figured I might as well use the remaining paint to make some progress on a Sentinel I had started painting a while back. So once Old Rowdy was done, I just kept going on the Sentinel.

I wanted him to look like he was hunkering down behind his shield for cover.

I sculpted the base from Greenstuff, I'm going for a tile/cobblestone theme for my Cygnar.

Well, I guess this is official my first painted Cygnar model. There's a bit of subtle conversion work going on: I found the stock model too bulky for my tastes, so I cut some material from his waist and boiler to slim him down a bit. His leg attachment points are also a little bit offset from the official model. I turned the spike on his shield into a big screw, cos I ain't a big fan of spikes. Lastly, I didn't like the default head, so I gave him a leftover Decimator head (sans the spike), which I thought fit him a little better.

It's really hard to see his "eyes", but they're green.

I had a fair bit of trouble with this model. First I had to paint his arms separately because of his pose, which was more of a pain than it should have been, then I had to repaint his shield because I decided that I really didn't like my first colour scheme. Next I got hit by the dreaded Sugar Coated Frosting Of Doom! We'd had some rains, and I guess it was still a little too humid when I sprayed him three days later. Or something. Anyway, following some onlineadvice I brushed him with some olive oil, which fixed the problem, though it took off a bit of the matt as well, so I ended up respraying him later. Finally I just noticed a splotch of blue paint over the gun's bronze fixings; it's in a hard position to see, but it's quite big so I would like to fix it. I only noticed this after spending two hours or more putting together the turntable animation, and there's no way I'm doing that all over again, so the fix will have to wait until I can be bothered.

Cloudy with a chance of DOOM! Hmm, I feel like I've made this joke before...

I originally started painting this model to experiment with shading. The results - which you can see on the blue areas - are quite flat; it's not all I'd hoped for, but I guess it's passable. The blue areas are Enchanted Blue, shaded with Mordian Blue I think, and highlighted with Ice Blue. The rest is all standard colours for me.

I'm not really happy with the weathering; I feel as if it would have looked better with either smaller patches of weathering, or just a lot more of it. I almost painted him without any weathering at all, but I ended up drilling some bullet holes into him to cover up some rough spots in the model, and I just went on from there.

When searching for inspiration for naming him, I tried to think of characters with both shields and guns. The only thing that came to mind were the protagonists of Army of Two (who can attach small ballistic shields on their weapons and can pick up objects in the environment to use as shields). I named him Tyson Rios, after the larger of the two main characters; hopefully someday I'll put together one of the older, smaller metal Sentinels who I'll then naturally name Elliot Salem. I'll probably give him a Marauder head or something.

In an attempt to create a smoother animation this time, I split the rotation into twice as many frames. I also used a heavy book inside the Foldio to get it to sit flat, and I set the camera on a two-second timer so I could take my hands off and let it return to the same position each time before the photo was taken. The results are an improvement, but it's even more labor-intensive to take the photos, and I still need to spend ages manually aligning them. I'm looking forwards to getting the Foldio Turntable thingy when it comes out, that should make this all much easier.

Pre-Game:
Beanpole won the roll and chose to go first. I picked the side with the forest in the zone. He chose Arcane Wonder and I chose Fuel Cache.

Deployment:
He put the Nihilators on my left with the Drake and the Incendiarii behind them. The Immortals went on my right with Hakaar and the Krea.

I wanted Sorscha right in the center for maximum feat potential. I wanted the Nyss to stay central, so I spread them amongst my front line. Alexia was the "second wave". I do not know why both my jacks went on the left, I think it was in response to Tiberion's position. I put the Cutthroats on the left since I didn't think they'd do much against the Immortals.

Round 1:
He moved forwards, spreading out his infantry.

I advanced cautiously, trying not to leave myself too exposed. Interesting fact: it seems you can't target (and therefore can't charge) objectives until scoring starts. The Nyss hid behind the forest and the Cutthroats half-heartedly tried to jam the Nihilators.

Round 2:
Makeda feated, cast Carnage, and camped 2 Fury behind a line-of-sight blocking wall of models to protect her from the feat. Incendiarii cleared out my jamming Cutthroats (not sure if we remembered that they had Stealth), allowing the Nihilators to charge my lines and kill some stuff. The Immortals walked forwards 13" (Savagery + Press Forwards + 2 from whatever Hakaar has) to kill Holt and a couple of Nyss. Marketh cycled Defender's Ward onto the Immortals.

So... I saw a potential assassination. I knew it was a bad idea before I even thought of it, but... I went for it anyway. Damn you young Sorscha, with your seductive siren-song of assassination! Alexia dropped a bunch of Thralls to get backstrike attacks to clear out some of the jam. Aiyana tried to Kiss an Immortal, but whiffed. Reinholdt gave Sorscha some delicious sugary cereal, while Sylyss just ran forwards a bit so she wouldn't leave him behind.

Preparations complete, Sorscha Windrushed around the Decimator then walked forwards, taking 5 damage from a couple of freestrikes. I cold have walked around the Decimator then Windrushed forwards to avoid it, but I hadn't been sure of my distance and thought I might have to charge something to make range. Finally Sorscha feated, freezing a bunch of stuff, and cast Tempest at the Incendiarii in front of Makeda. This killed the Incendiarii, knocked down Makeda and the Krea, and did 5 damage to Makeda herself. Stupidly I used the Lucky Charms on the attack roll (I did NOT want to roll 2s), instead of saving it for the damage roll on Makeda. Finally Sorscha took an unboosted handcanon shot, doing another 5 damage.

The Spriggan killed a non-frozen Nihilator with a lucky 7. The Risen killed a couple of Nihilators and whiffed on the Immortal (which might have been a big deal as it turned out), the Alexia crafted a Thrall and charged him into Makeda; I figured there was slightly more damage potential and slightly less chance of missing. He did another 5 damage, which Makeda transferred to the Krea.

Koldun Lord gave the Decimator a point of focus. The Decimator then walked as far forwards as he could to try to get into range of Makeda, but by measuring my control area I estimated that he was at 11". I might have been able to beat-back into range and get her with my second shot, but I had forgotten that the Immortal I was standing next to (the one that the Risen had failed to kill) was not frozen, so I couldn't shoot anything and I wasn't even close enough to try to kill the immortal. So that was a huge waste.

The Cutthroats activated; Croe tried to shoot at Makeda but I just couldn't quite draw line of sight around the Thrall I had sent at her, so that was a wash. Sigh. Another Cutthroat was out of range, and the last one did a few points of damage.

Finally it was the Nyss Hunters' turn. I used Zephyr to try to move them forwards without taking free strikes, but I just couldn't get line of sight with most of them. By the time I had taken my final shot, Makeda was down to just one box and no transfers.

Round 3:
Makeda side-stepped off the Thrall to get out of Alexia's Arcane Disjunction range, while keeping Sorscha in range of Carnage. Feated-back Nihilators killed some stuff. The Drake rolled some hot dice and killed Sorscha with a perfect damage roll on a spray before Tiberion could even activate.

Postmortem:
The thing about Sorscha is that, between her feat, spells, and mobility, she's good at creating assassination opportunities, and I haven't been able to resist going for them even when I know that they aren't good odds.

I've noticed recently that I seem to do much better in games when I go first; I don't know if it's my army specifically or just my playstyle, but when I go second the distances just feel all wrong to me. Plus it hurts my scenario game a lot. Because of this, I decided that I would aim to go second this game if I won the roll, to get the practice in. I think that needs to be my goal for a bit: try to figure out why going second is so bad for me and how to deal with it.

I clearly misjudged his threat range on the second turn, losing more than half my Cutthroats to Nihilators and Incendiarii. SPD 4 models that can walk 13" and have reach are just ridiculous; it's funny to think how much longer their melee threat range is than my SPD 7 Nyss Hunters; losing Holt was annoying, though I'm not sure I could have done as much with him as I would have liked even if I hadn't lost him since I was so jammed in.

I said that Makeda was left with just one box and no transfers, but it wasn't actually as close as it sounded; Beanpole was a little bit unlucky with his choice of damage rolls to transfer, but if I had rolled higher damage rolls he might actually have ended the turn in better shape because he could have transferred the right attacks, if that makes sense. On the other hand, if the Decimator had been able to get a shot in I'm pretty sure I would have won (only just though; his last transfer was for a single damage box, which would have been just enough to kill Makeda if he'd had to burn the transfer on a Decimator shot). Shame I didn't bring the Destroyer instead.

Makeda's feat kinda counter's Sorscha's somewhat; if I kill any living models they aren't frozen next turn and can pop up in annoying places, so I kind of end up not wanting to kill the models that I've frozen. What I probably should have done was focus on freezing and killing Immortals (Aiyana wouldn't have missed if I had frozen them first), and simply left the Nihilators for a turn, then switched my attention to them later. I might have needed to feed Tibbers a warjack to keep him busy or something. Eh, I still just can't see the positions in my head; my army just turned into such a messy jam.

Why doest he Khador counter pack come with only six stationary tokens? Does PP not know what Sorscha's feat does? It's quite easy to freeze twenty models or more on her feat turn. I pulled out some more tokens to use, but decided it wasn't worth the effort of handing them out since Sorscha couldn't move after feating. I know, lazy and careless, and it did prove to be a bit of an annoyance.

I just took for granted before that when replacing a Risen with a Thrall I can face the Thrall in any direction that I want, but it occurs to me now that might not be the case; I need to look into this, because I had placed all my forward Risen facing away from Makeda, so charging her with the Thrall might actually have been an illegal move. I've probably done this before without thinking about it.

I really think I would have done better with eSorscha; I could have jammed the Immortals with Iron Fleshed Nyss and frozen the Nihilators with Freezing Grip then taken (some of) them off the table with Shatterstorm on the Cutthroats (with a little intelligence and an Arcane Wonder it might even be possible to swap Shatterstorm around to get more RFP attacks on them). The older, wiser Sorscha just seems to play better for me I think; at least I feel happier with her tools than the younger version's.

Saturday, March 12, 2016

Got a couple more games in with MacBain!!!!:MacBain!!!!-Mangler-Sylyss WishnalyrrNyss HuntersCroe's CutthroatsAlexia & the RisenLady A and Mister HKell

Game 1:
My first game was against Beanpole:Makeda I-Tiberion-Krea-MarkethPaingiver Beast Handlers (4) Immortals-UAIncendiarii (4)Ha-KaarWillbreaker

Pre-Game:
Scenario was two flags and killbox. I won the roll and chose to go first. Beanpole picked the side with the forest and rough terrain.

Deployment:
There was a nice forest in the middle of the table that I thought would serve my Nyss very well, so I set them up behind it. Alexia was behind them, ready to slowly contest his flag with Risen. MacBain!!!! was directly behind my flag, with the Mangler there to threaten.

He deployed the Incendiarii on my left, near his flag, and the Immortals on my right, opposite my flag. Tibbers was in the middle and the Krea was embedded in his Immortals.

I then placed the Cutthroats behind my flag, ready to run forwards and jam. Kell went on the other side out of habit; in retrospect he would have been more useful against the Immortals than against the Incendiarii.

Round 1:
So the very first thing I did was forget to allocate focus to the Mangler. Great start. My infantry ran forwards and spread out. Kell hugged the house for cover. Fortune went on the Cutthroats, Failsafe on the Mangler, and I used the last point of focus for Energizer. I should have ran Alexia forwards, but instead I walked and created a Thrall; the idea was to run him forwards as a tempting target to draw at least one Incendiarii shot away from my Nyss, but I forgot to activate him after creating him.

Beanpole advanced and spread out,putting Defender's Ward on the Immortals and covering a bunch of Immortals and Incendiarii with Paralytic Auras.

Round 2:
So... I really didn't know what to do here. I didn't think much of the Cutthroat's chances against Defenders-Warded Immortals. So I figured the best I could do right now was jam forwards. I also figured I might be able to get a couple of Nyss Hunters into Makeda, just to annoy her. So MacBain!!!! popped his feat and handed out tokens to a handful of Cutthroats and Nyss, who then proceeded to charge Beanpole's front lines. Naturally I forgot to try to clear a path to Makeda, but I don't think I would have reached her anyway so nevermind.

I killed a couple of Immortals with great dice on the Cutthroats, giving him his Vengeance moves and souls to turn Incorporeal with. So much for jamming. Kell killed another. One Nyss Hunter rolled well and killed an Incendiarii. MacBain!!!! cautiously approached the flag; I left him close enough that one or two Immortals could probably charge him, but not more than that. I created a new Thrall and ran the two over to the flag to be annoying.

Hakaar and the Immortals rolled a whole lot of low dice; between Vengeance attacks and normal ones they only killed a couple of Cutthroats and left a couple knocked down. Makeda based the flag and, along with the Incendiarii, killed my Thralls, knocked down my front line of Nyss, and set them on fire. Tiberion trampled over two unkillable Nyss to reach one that he could paste, which he did. He couldn't score this turn thanks to unkillable Nyss.

Round 3:
For some strange reason Tiberion appeared to be in my Mangler's charge range. He had very thoughtfully made sure he wasn't engaged by anything either, meaning Aiyana didn't have too much trouble Kissing him. Holt put some damage on him, then the Mangler charged. He killed Hakaar with the Thresher attack, but mediocre damage rolls left Tibbers on a few boxes, but that was nothing a SURPRISE THRALLPEDO TO THE BACK couldn't take care of. Bless Alexia, with her evil necromantic sword and cursed undead minions.

MacBain!!!! ran from the oncoming Immortals, who my Cutthroats basically bounced off this turn. The Nyss Hunters killed another Incendiarii. Kell bravely strode forwards to try to protect Alexia from any retribution.

Makeda surrendered the flag but feated, while the rest of Beanpole's forces killed some more of my infantry. One Immortal charged Aiyana but failed to kill her. He swapped Defender's Ward onto Makeda. Oh, and he killed Kell. Alas.

Round 4:
I was able to get the Mangler into Makeda, but only did a bit of damage, that I think he transferred. I wanted to start scoring this turn, so I cleared his flag and set about creating a barrier of bodies that could protect MacBain!!!!. However, when all my models on that side had finished their activations, I realised that he still had an Incendiarii left that could probably take out the whole infantry wall with a single shot, (plus Beanpole would feat back a second one), so instead of running MacBain!!!! I had to advance and take a double-boosted handcannon shot to finish it off. Aiyana tagged the engaging Immortal with her Kiss, then Holt killed one or two. With Defender's Ward gone and the armour at a more reasonable level, the Cutthroats were able to kill a few more.

I guess Beanpole was a bit desperate here, because he sent Makeda in to a hot zone to kill Alexia. Which she did. The Immortals finished off the Cutthroats with their Vengeance attacks, then they killed Aiyana but whiffed on Holt. The Krea ran over to base my flag.

Round 5:
So Makeda was now sitting in front of MacBain!!!!. Easily kill, right? Somehow I didn't think so; not with Defender's Ward and a couple of Blood-Quenched tokens. But I figured MacBain!!!! had reach and she didn't, meaning he could attack while keeping a few models between them. I figured I could hit her once to stop transfers then put the Mangler and Cylena into her; they would both get back-stike bonuses, so I could probably do some damage while keeping a fair camp and scoring.

It took MacBain!!!! three focus to land a single hit, that did no damage. The Mangler and Cylena did maybe a few points between them? I left MacBain!!!! on three focus, with a couple of Risen between him and the Skorne warlock.

The other Nyss Hunter shot down Marketh, who was contesting, and Holt took two aspects off the Krea (which I thought was pretty impressive). I scored two points for dominating the flag.

The Krea finally killed Holt and started to score. Makeda killed Cylena but somehow managed to leave Sylyss on one box. The Willbreaker moved in to contest the flag. The Immortals scratched the paint on the Mangler. At some point we paused the game because this happened:

That's just from a regular dice throw. How crazy is that? Anyway, Beanpole scored a point this turn.

Round 6:
After what happened last time I tried it, I wasn't prepared to go after Makeda, so MacBain!!!! cast Fortune on himself, walked over to the other side of the flag, and killed the Willbreaker. I body-blocked Makeda with all the infantry I had left, while the Mangler killed a couple of models with a lazy swing. Beanpole scored one point and I scored two.

Beanpole killed some more infantry and spread out his remaining forces to try to make it hard for me to clear my flag. He scored another point, bringing his total up to three.

Round 7:
So for some reason I forgot that the flags weren't neutral and got it into my head that the Mangler could score a point on my flag. So I loaded him up with focus, cast Energizer for three to make damned sure he had the distance, and sent him in to the Krea. He murdered it easily with his charge attack, leaving him with three focus and MacBain!!!! on zero with Makeda possibly in his back arc. Smart. Of course I didn't score anything.

Beanpole attacked MacBain!!!! with the remaining Immortals and a Paingiver, while Makeda based the flag and tried to make sure MacBain!!!! couldn't reach her. The Immortals rolled poorly and didn't do much damage. He scored a point, leaving us both at 4.

Round 8:
So MacBain!!!! needed to base the flag to score, but I also needed the Mangler to contest or else we'd both just go up to five points. So MacBain!!!! charged the Mangler, used Energizer to move the Mangler out of his reach then move the remaining couple of inches towards the flag. The Mangler ran over to contest. I scored the fifth point I needed to win.

Game 2:
I played against Blondie, who was running a similar list to last time:Styker I-Old Rowdy-SquireJourneyman Warcaster:-DefenderGunmages-UASword Knights (10)Sword Knights (6)

Pre-Game:
We rolled the scenario with two flags and a zone with two objectives. We both picked Arcane Wonder. He won the roll and picked the side of the table with the wall and less intervening terrain, leaving me to go first.

Deployment:
The flag on the right looked nice and sheltered, so I prepared MacBain!!!! to go running over to it. The Nyss Hunters stood next to him, planning to use the large forest as cover from the Gunmages. The Risen went in the middle to contest stuff.

He deployed the Sword Knights in a long line, with the larger unit on my left. The Gunmages were spread out between them. Rowdy was just to the right of center, and the Defender to the left (behind the wall).

I put the Cutthroats on my left where the could contest the other flag, with one far on the right so he could get Fortuned. Kell went on the far left because... uh... I don't know.

Round 1:
So the very first thing I did this game, you guessed it, forgot to allocate focus to the Mangler. Sigh. Fortune on the Cutthroats, who ran up to the hill, Failsafe on the Mangler, the Nyss ran up and hid behind the forest.

Blondie ran his Sword Knights forwards in base contact. The large unit on left got Arcane Shield. The other shield went on Rowdy, and Snipe on the Defender - who killed a Cutthroat. Rowdy got into the zone, but was behind the forest.

Round 2:
Well, the plan was to start scoring, so I would need to keep MacBain!!!! safe. I also saw an opportunity with Alexia, but she would need to move forwards to take advantage, so she needed some protection as well. I placed the Cutthroat's corpse well forwards. MacBain!!!! feated on the Nyss and Alexia. The Nyss charged the small unit of Sword Knights and stubbornly refused to roll anything less than a 7, killing all but one.

Then I did something I'd never done before... I actually used Bushwack! The Cutthroats shot at the Sword Knights before moving back away from theGunmages. Shame they stubbornly refused to roll anything more than a 3... not really, but even with Fortune and poisoned weapons they only managed to kill a couple of Sword Knights. Kell ran in a long flanking maneuver.

Alexia advanced, moving the dead Cutthroat's corpse behind his line of Knights, while the rest of her posse formed up in front of her. She then turned the corpse into a Thrall, who had a clear charge lane at the Journeyman. One lucky attack roll and one perfect damage roll later, and I had one less warcaster to worry about this game!

Styker walked over an reactivated the Defender. The Sword Knights killed a bunch of Cutthroats. The Gunmages killed Kell, some Risen, and knocked down some Nyss Hunters.

Round 3:
I ran the Mangler around the forest to get to Rowdy, planning to use Jackhammer to attack him. Just one little problem: I forgot you need line of sight to cast Jackhammer, and there was a forest in the way. So instead MacBain!!!! based the flag to start scoring.

Risen and Cutthroats killed some Sword Knights, Nyss Hunters managed to shoot a couple of Gunmages. I created a new Thrall and sent him in to tie up some Gunmages.

Rowdy got three focus and attacked the Mangler, but his damage dice were poor and he only took off about half his boxes. The Gunmages killed the Thrall and punched a hole in my line of Nyss, allowing the Defender to shoot at MacBain!!!!, but he only did a few points of damage. Sword Knights continued killing Risen, then providing Alexia with corpses for replacements by killing Cutthroats. I scored a second point. Stryker used his feat.

Round 4:
The Mangler got three focus; a Thresher hit the object for... very little, and Old Rowdy for even less. After spending all my focus I think I did like one point of damage to Rowdy. The Nyss Hunters killed another Gunmage, but didn't do much else. Alexia burned all her Risen trying to break through the ARM on a single Sword Knight, but failed. The Cutthroats manage to kill a couple with charges though. I scored a third point.

Old Rowdy had to leave the fight in order to get around and contest the flag, running there through a hole the Gunmages made for him. Stryker shot the Mangler, leaving him Disrupted.

Round 5:
I put everything I had into Rowdy, but only managed to do a couple more points of damage. So MacBain!!!! abandoned the flag, running behind the forest. The Cutthroats and Alexia whiffed on the Sword Knights. Oh, after several turns of ineffective slapping at each other, a couple of Nyss Hunters finally managed to kill the last Sword Knight from the smaller unit.

Rowdy finally killed the Mangler. One Sword Knight killed another Cutthroat, while the other two died to free-strikes in order to leave Alexia un-engaged, allowing the Defender to gun her down. The Gunmages finally advanced and shot at MacBain!!!!, but couldn't break his armour.

Round 6:
Aiyana Kissed Blondie's objective, Holt shot it for a few points, then four Nyss Hunters charged it. Poor rolls saw three of them die before the last one finished it off, netting me a point. Croe killed the last Sword Knight, while his last Cutthroat ran over to engage a Gunmage. MacBain!!!! then charged over and killed said Gunmage, clearing the zone and dominating for two, winning me the game.

Postmortem:
OK, so those were some long grindy games. A lot of that was my fault for being so cagey with MacBain!!!!. I keep thinking that I should have been able to go all-in on Makeda, but the DEF buff from Defender's Ward combined with the extra ARM plus one or two Blood-Quenched tokens all the time... well, the one time I did attack her I burned half my focus and did 0 damage, so... having said that, there were several turns where Makeda could have reached MacBain!!!!, but he was usually camping at least 3 and I made sure it would have cost her initials to reach him, so Beanpole apparently wasn't prepared to risk it either. Honestly though, he really should have gone for it one that turn when I left MacBain!!!! on 0 camp with his back turned to her. I guess he didn't think I'd be able to score and/or contest so he wouldn't need to?

I think my dice were fairly average; I got the real clutch rolls off, but I don't think I pulled off any really crazy rolls. Both my opponents had some pretty bad dice though; Blondie's Gunmages rolled a whole lot of 3s, and Beanpole's Immortals took about 3 times as long to kill the Cutthroats as they should have.

Aiyana and Holt are... kind of a big deal. Aiyana's Kiss can really be huge, and Holt can do a surprising amount of damage; he came respectably close to one-rounding the Krea. At this point I'm fairly sure they're a must-have for a Merc list with no other damage buffs. I need to get mine assembled.

I have decided that, from this moment forth, Alexia shall officially be known as my second warcaster. She has almost warcaster-level stats, with great survivability, great offensive power, and some crazy abilities like getting Thralls into insane places, but she's cheap and, unlike my warcaster, is basically expendable. Killing that Journeyman was a huge blow, and it was a very hard attack to protect against.

I've been thinking of trying other jacks, but every time I do I imagine trying to kill Tiberion without a chain weapon. And with Beanpole talking about just keeping Defenders Ward on Tiberion all game, I just don't see it happening. I might try taking a second jack at some point though (once I get one assembled that is), at least at 50 points.

MacBain!!!! isn't exactly proving to be a powerhouse, but he does seem to have a flexible toolbox; I don't think I've found myself in a situation where I felt like I had no options, though I do feel very dependent on getting lucky with my warjack for armour cracking. OK, Sorscha and Strakhoff won't be cracking any armour on their own (one of the things I don't like about them), but Sorscha better enables the rest of her army to crack armour and Strakhoff can use still use Ram to manage heavies to some extent. Energizer is proving to be far more valuable than I expected it to be, I wouldn't have won the first game without it.

That 6 point unit of Sword Knights held up and ground down my 10 point Cutthroats and 5 point Risen units for the whole game, even after losing Arcane Shield. Yes, Alexia got a couple of Thralls off, but still, not a bad investment.

Blondie needs to be more aware of the scenario. The problem is that right now he's having trouble keeping his warcaster alive; I believe he lost the two games before this one to surprise assassinations on Stryker. So he's responding by keeping Stryker further back. Which is fair, but unfortunately makes it hard for him to score. Perhaps he should swap the Defender for the Centurion; that would give him a very robust piece that can contest zones and crack armour; I think he'd get more use out of it than he is from the Defender's cannon.

Monday, March 7, 2016

I finally had a chance to put MacBain!!!! on the table again. Since we were playing at 50 points, I had to borrow a few models, this time I was given the Piper instead of the Arab... I mean instead of Saxon.MacBain!!!!-Mangler-Silly WelshnameelfKayazy Eliminators Nyss HuntersCutthroatsAlexia & the Z-words Aiyana & Holt (borrowed)The Piper (borrowed)Kell Bailoch MaddieThor-Blaster (2)

Pre-Game:
I won the roll and chose to go first. Beanpole sent me over to the side of the table with the big chunk of rough terrain right in the middle. We played the scenario with the two neutral 12" round zones.

Deployment:
"A big chunk of rough terrain right in the middle?" I thought to myself, "No problem, I have plenty of Pathfinder!". So I naturally deployed my pathfinder units on the sides and my non-pathfinder models in the middle behind the rough terrain. Smart.

I was expecting Beanpole to go for the zone on my right with the big trench running through it in order to protect him from my shooting, so I deployed the Nyss opposite that side since they don't care about cover, and the bulk of my army opposite the left zone where I was expecting less resistance. Alexia went in the middle for corpse collection.

Beanpole deployed his Nihilators on my right, the Reptile Hounds on my left, and the rest of his forces in the middle.

The Cutthroats pretty much had to go on my left since the Nyss were on the right, but I put Kell on the far right to help with the Nihilators and the Void Spirit.

Round 1:
I ran fowards and tried to space out. Fortune went on the Cutthroats and Fail Safe on the Mangler, leaving me one focus for a 1" energizer. Rhupert gave the Nyss Tough.

Beanpole ran forwards, trying to use the forest defensively. He put Defender's Ward on the Nihilators, and cast Paralytic Aura with the Krea, the Shaman, and Xersis. The Void Spirit kept it's distance from Kell.

Round 2:
The Blasters shot at the Reptile Hounds, doing surprisingly little despite even with some boosts. Kell, Holt, the Cutthroats, and the Nyss mainly just took aimed shots, managing to kill two Reptile Hounds and kill a few Nihilators, leaving a few more knocked down. Rhupert gave the Nyss Tough again, and MacBain!!!! gave them Fortune. Alexa backed up behind the Mangler because I was scared of the Flayer Cannon and the Shaman's boostable Ghost Sight shot. Maddie ran up to base her for better collection range. Risen tried to get past the treacherous "slightly uneven ground" in front of them, but they no walk so good.

The Nihilators charged my Nyss but killed... none? I think the Flayer killed Cylena (I forgot to take a tough roll) and the Tiberion killed another? After he was done murdering my Blasters and slamming them into Cutthroats that is. The last Reptile Hound killed another Cutthroat. The Void Spirit ran to help the Nihilators contest while trying to keep some distance from Kell (I think he was trying to engage a Nyss Hunter but couldn't quite make it?). Xersis cast Inhospitable Ground.

Round 3:
With Inhospitable Ground up, it would be very hard to get the Mangler into Tiberion. I thought I could make it, but first I wanted to Kiss him with Aiyana, which introduced all sorts of order of activation issues because he was currently engaging both a Cutthroat and a Nyss Hunter, which would make him much harder to hit.

So I dropped Fail Safe for the Focus and placed some Risen, blocking Tiberion's line of sight to the nearby Nyss Hunter. The Nyss killed some more Nhilators. Kell killed the Void Spirit. Rhupert gave the Nyss Tough as a parting gift before he left them for someone else (Alexia, who might need Pathfinder soon). Alexia then killed the last Reptile Hound with an aimed double-boosted handcannon shot, burning the Risen engaged by Tiberion. The Cutthroats charged, killing a Paingiver and missing the Gladiator. The Cutthroat engaged by Tiberion just ran off, getting crit-slammed into Thor. Both died.

Now Alexia was finally able to Kiss Tiberion. Holt shot some Paingivers I think. Finally, the Mangler ran a painstaking 5" inches to try to reach Tiberion, but was a couple of millimeters out. So MacBain!!!! had to cast Energizer for 1 Focus, getting the Mangler into range, then cast Jackhammer four times with the last of his focus. All four attacks hit, leaving Tiberion with about 4 boxes. Not quite good enough, sadly.

I then enacted operation "make damn sure nothing can kill MacBain!!!!", moving him well back and running the last of my models into what I hoped were protective positions.

Xersis cast Inhospitable Ground and healed Tiberion for a point, a Paingiver healed him for another (restoring all aspects), then Marketh gave him Defender's Ward. Tiberion then killed the Mangler. The Krea and Gladiator killed a bunch of Cutthroats, and the unit broke. Nihilators knocked down a single Nyss Hunter. The Shaman killed another, but the Flayer Cannon missed.

Round 4:
The Nyss Hunters, still rocking Fortune, killed the last of the Nihilators, a Paingiver or two, and the Flayer Cannon. The Flayer Cannon's grunt was of course promoted, but Kell walked up to get into a more threatening position and killed it.

Tiberion was at DEF 17 to Aiyana's kiss (how the hell does that happen?), but she just managed to land it. Holt shot... a Paingiver? Not sure. MacBain!!!! then cycled Fortune onto Alexia, repositioned towards the right zone, and managed to knock a few boxes off Tiberion with an impressive damage roll on a double-boosted hand cannon shot. He also feated (after casting Fortune instead of before, because I am stupid), allowing him to protect the Eliminators, the last of the Cutthroats, Aiyana & Holt, Maddie, Alexia, and the only Nyss Hunter who was actually in range.

Rhupert gave Alexia Pathfinder and set up in front of MacBain!!!!. Alexia charged Tiberion, finishing him off, while the rest of the Risen set up to block lines, and also managed to knock an impressive number of boxes off the Gladiator with a crazy damage roll on a charging CMA. The Cutthroats rallied, and the Eliminators spread out a bit. I scored a point for controlling the right zone.

With most of my important models being unkillable this turn, Beanpole focussed on thinning out my Risen and contesting the right zone. The Gladiator killed the z-words in front of him, the Krea and Paingivers killed some more, and the Shaman ran to the right zone. Xersis cast Inhospitable Ground again. He might have cast Defender's Ward on Xersis?

Round 5:
Kell finished off the Willbreaker. Aiyana Kissed the Shaman and Holt shot it for impressive damage. MacBain!!!! cast Fortune on the Nyss then walked and Energizered over to the zone. The Nyss charged the Shaman and finished it off, the rest blocked out the zone. Croe whacked the Krea pretty hard, but the other Cutthroat whiffed. The Eliminators ran around the edges of the left zone to be annoying. I could have charged Alexia at something, but she only had a few Risen left at this point so I decided to pull her back defensively instead; Rhupert gave her Pathfinder and they ran back to shield MacBain!!!!. I scored two points for dominating.

Beanpole wasn't really going to be able to stop me from winning on scenario at this point, so his only chance was assassination. Marketh cast Fury on Xersis. Two Paingivers moved over to kill the Cutthroat, allowing the Gladiator to walk over and throw Croe at a Nyss. He rolled the hard 9 he needed to hit, but the Nyss Hunter wasn't his real target: the flying bandit crashed instead into a Risen, killing them both and giving Xersis a landing zone. The Krea paralyzed a Nyss Hunter, allowing Xersis to charge and kill him easily, Overrunning into MacBain!!!!. Xersis was rolling straight dice; with MAT 8, one initial and 5 Fury, the outcome should have been obvious.

However, at this point Beanpole's dice showed their true colours and viciously stabbed him in the back, leaving MacBain!!!! on 2 health. At the end of the turn I scored the two points I needed to win.

Postmortem:
As soon as the game ended, Beanpole remembered that he still had his feat. Xersis had hit twice; that means the feat would have given him two more dice of damage; guaranteed to be enough to finish MacBain!!!! if he had remembered. I rolled a dice to see if MacBain!!!! would have passed his tough roll, and rolled a 1. So yeah, one silly mistake and some evil, evil dice cost Beanpole the game. Speaking of dice, mine were really good; I had some great damage rolls and I almost always got the numbers I needed when I needed them, perhaps the only exception being the failure to take out Tiberion with the Mangler (but that was always a bit of a long shot).

One thing I discovered this game is that Inhospitable Ground is just an annoying rule for everyone involved. Because it creates this invisible zone of rough terrain, it makes it really annoying to move when you're around the edges (as many of my models were). When I was moving MacBain!!!! the last time, we forgot about it, then when we remembered it created this awkward situation of trying to figure out where MacBain!!!! should be, and we ended up on a compromise that was closer to Beanpole's army than I had intended. If I had remembered earlier I might have worked around it better, possibly even using Rhupert's magic music on him rather than on Alexia. Well, I've always placed great value on Pathfinder, especially on warcasters; I love that Strakhoff has it natively, and this game just validated that.

I always seem to underestimate Xersis threat range, don't I? I love Overtake, someday I'll get a chance to use it myself.

I'm glad I was able to kill the Reptile Hounds early, but damn if they didn't absorb a lot more firepower than I expected.

The Shaman is an interesting support piece, with quite a lot of abilities. Plus a LOS-ignoring boostable gun is a valuable tool. Against my dudespam list though, Incendiarii are probably more valuable.

It's worth mentioning that I forgot to enforce Alexia's passive ability that doubles the cost of casting spells; that would have prevented Xersis from casting Inhospitable Ground, allowing MacBain!!!! to get to a safer position at the end. Speaking of which, in retrospect I shouldn't have pulled her back, I should have kept her forwards to be a nuisance. Well, I suppose I would have if I had seen the assassination coming, but if I had I would have done a lot of things differently, so never mind.

Wow, a Nyss Hunter was hit and actually survived! This has never happened before! Crazy! I'm starting to see why Rhupert is so highly regarded. Although I'm wondering if the added defense is actually better for the Nyss overall? Well, at least in this case, when my opponent didn't have any AOEs, auto-hitting effects, or accuracy buffs.

I really didn't do anything at all with the Eliminators this game. This was partly due to wanting to keep them alive in case I needed them to give MacBain!!!! the Gang bonus, and partly because Inhospitable Ground hurt them pretty badly. Hey, at least I remembered to put them on the table.

I do like MacBain!!!!'s toolbox. I think I made good use of his feat this game, it bought me a turn where Beanpole couldn't really kill anything valuable and had to just focus on Risen. Fortune isn't the most powerful spell around, but I think it was valuable this game, turning several misses into hits, helping to turn the balance of attrition in my favor. I wonder though if I was too obsessed with swapping it around? MacBain!!!! was pretty much on 0 camp all game. I can get away with that against Skorne, at least in the early turns when he's pretty safe from melee threats, but nearer to the end it might be wise to concentrate more on camping. Overall I think he's doing pretty well against Skorne so far, but realistically I think I should swap Thor's group for another warjack. I'll probably do that as soon as can put one together, which I can't really do right now as there's too much on my backlog.